Oddities

Sometimes I am attracted to plants because they are just odd. One of the first plants that I got when we got our new house was the Peppermint clematis pictured above. It had a green center and whitish petals, and looked very different. We put it in the first flower bed that we built. Then we moved that bed the next spring. It started to grow and even got a few flowers, but then it died back. I thought it was dead so I dug it up and replaced it with a jasmine plant. But rather than throwing it out I put it in a pot and left it on the patio over the winter. Lo and behold this spring it started growing like mad, so when we rearranged the beds in the backyard I planted it by a shephard's hook with a windchime on it. It put on lot of flower buds, one of which you see above. This brings me to my quandry. The flowers are fairly small and they aren't brightly colored. I bought another clematis, Little Duckling, thinking to replace it, but I haven't. There is something that still appeals to me about Peppermint, and so it lives on in my garden. I think I'll plant my Little Duckling clematis under my other shepherd's hook with the hummingbird feeder.